4 - Friday, June 19, 1987 — North Shore News

Bob Hunter

@ strictly personal ®

WELCOME TO Planet

| Earth, Alexandra Cathleen Zoe Hunter, granddaugh- ter.

You have arrived at what the Buddhists call an auspicious time, quite different from the era in which your Dad arrived back in 1965, and another planet, nearly, compared to the world your old Grandpa encountered when I popped in.

That was 1941. The biggest, most horrendous war in history was in full flame. You could feel the ground tremble even as far away as the safe, snug heart of the North American mainland.

Yet to be a child in Winnipeg during the Second World War was to know a kind of security probably no one else on earth could feel quite so thoroughly. We were about as far removed from the zones where men were butchering each other en masse zs youcouldbe.

It was great! My Dad joined

( the RCAF, but never went overseas, Neither did any of his four brothers. My Mom had four brothers too and none of them went overseas either. A man who married one of my aunts did get to Europe, but he served as a cook and was never closer than a

| hundred miles to a front line.

As a result, Alexandra — are — you paying attention? — you in-

¥ herit, from your grandfather, something that js infinitely

+ precious, With none of my uncles ever having got hurt or killed in a

§ war, there’s no big grudge in the

( family against anybody.

Nobody in cur family, in my

§ lifetime, got shot at or stabbed or bombed or tortured by an enemy in armed conflict. There’s no scar tissue at all, no family stories about how Uncle Tim lost his leg.

sto the Huns, or how Uncle Clarence ‘never came back from Burma. But I have to report, lucky as our family was, being located so

"= nicely, our luck ran out with everybody ‘else’s at the end of the war when a new kind of weapon called an A-bomb was dropped

fon Japan — just across that ocean you'll be able to see out- side in a few days.

From then on, thar.s to our knack for building machines, we ali faced the possibility of a war

f that really would end all wars because there would be nothing: left on’ Earth afterwards except cockroaches and crabgrass, if

{| anything.

This was a quite different form

of warfare than had ever been possible before. It meant that the future wasn’t automatically going to happen any longer. There might not be a future, frankly.

The awful thing that might happen to us all was given fascinating names like apocalypse and holocaust and Armageddon, and we were all kind of hyp- notized by the apparent in- evitability of doom.

Back in the °60s, when your | Dad was born, Grandpa — like a lot of people — was what you could call pessimistic and para- noid. I’m afraid I dumped all this | gloominess onto your poor Dad's little head.

Anyway, he grew up quite ni- hilistic. So did a lot of his generation, it seems. They were — or are — I swear, probably more pessimistic than Gramps himself used to be.

And, I might add, with plenty of reason.

Until very recently, in some ways darn near within the time span of your ride in Mom's womb, the general outlook for the human race has remained fairly hopeless, | would have to say.

Then, just prior to your con- ception, the leaders of the two most powerful and dangerous countries in the world, with | enough of these deadly weapons between them to destroy the world a thousand times over, got together and talked, for the first time, about eliminating nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth.

This is good news, Alexandra. There’s absolutely no guarantee that these particular men will ac- complish any such thing in the time they have, but the fact that they talked about it means an awful lot.

It means that after a long,

nerve-wracking standoff, the ri- |

fles on both sides have been lowered. It looks like there is go- ing to be a future, after all, I can | now report with more confidence than I’ve ever had any reason to feel.

So let’s think about this future. Your Dad never believed there’d be one, and he got some of that from Gramps — but look, the j times they have a-changed, and the prospects for our species start to look genuinely exciting again. Let me tell you about supercon- ductors some time... ;

Have fun, lass! Nice timing. Nice location, too. Nice folks. Lots of backup. You sure know how to pick a scene.

Heritage committee to be formed in WV

A NEW committee will be formed and a consultant selected to undertake an inventory of homes, buildings and other resources of heritage value in West Vancouver.

West Vancouver District Council voted Monday to proceed with the selection of the consultant. The mayor will select the five members of the heritage advisory committee who will function on an interim basis.

Application will then be made for funding of the heritage inven- tory project.

Every building in the municipality will be surveyed and classified as to its heritage interest.

\

Those of architectural, historical and contextual merit will be iden- tified — including those post-war buildings which particularly ex- emplify West Coast architecture.

Each edifice chosen for the in- ventory will be documented with photographs and historical re- cords. .

The work will look at a framework for protection of heritage buildings as well as in- clude a historical review of West Vancouver’s development.

NV District dives into

self-insurance pool

AFTER TESTING the fiscal waters, North Vancouver District Council decided to dive into a municipal self- insurance pool Monday.

By MICHAEL BECKER News Reporter

Council ratified an earlier in- camera decision to join a pro- vince-wide municipal self-in- surance scheme.

Municipal manager Mel Palmer, who sat on the steering committee

of a Union of British Columbia Municipalities (UBCM) study to set up the scheme, said 100 of the 170 municipalities in B.C. were needed to sign up by July 15 to make the program viable.

“Last I heard, 38 municipalities had signed up. Most councils will be considering the item next week,’’ said Palmer.

With the pooled funding ar- rangement Palmer said liability in- surance premiums plus deductibles would cost the district $114,000 for 1987. The rate quoted to the

municipality from private industry is $190,000 for the year.

The UBCM move to self-fun- ding came after municipal in- surance costs skyrocketed over the past two years. For example in 1985, the district paid out $38,000. The same coverage would have cost $239,000 for 1987. ‘

Said Palmer: ‘‘The main cause of the rise in rates was that the in- surance industry based premiums on an international scale, not on what was happening locally.”

Weekend Blitz Sale! S40 — 845 — 820 -— 825

sfskesfeskesfesfesfesfesfestesfesfeslesfeeoenesesiestesketebestestessessesistetesk oe For panis, skirts, shorts, blouses, blazers...

— Special prices in effect only from Fri. June 19th 10-8, Sat. 10-6, Sun, 12-5 Dont miss your Chance!

‘SPECIAL LIMITED TIME OFFER ON APPROVED BANK CREDIT

1695 Marine Dr. North Vancouver

ree

HYUN 986-4297